Ball State's Faculty Council held elections for new executive officers to begin serving during the 2016-2017 academic year during their meeting April 7.
The current vice chairperson and acting chairperson of Faculty Council, Andy Beane, led the election and told council members now was the time for them to want to take leadership.
"Moving forward, the leadership of all the councils will now be involved with the trustees," Beane said. "You might want to get yourself involved."
Chairperson
For the role of chairperson of the council, the committee elected associate professor of construction management Tarek Mahfouz. He has been a professor at Ball State since 2009 and said he quickly became involved with the university government.
"Since that time of being in one position or another, I really believe that the Faculty Council is one of the most important committees that deals with faculty issues," Mahfouz said. "There has been a lot of effort that was put towards progressing and doing good things here and I would love to be a part of that."
He said his goal as Faculty Council chairperson is to help faculty members however he can.
"[Faculty] get into a lot of situations where sometimes their voice is not heard because of a procedural issue," he said. "I want to be involved with this. I would love to take care of the faculty all over."
According to his Faculty Council biography, Mahfouz has more than 45 peer-reviewed publications and is an editorial board member of multiple peer-reviewed journals. He also held a variety of titles, such as Deputy Technical Manger with SG/SC Construction Services in Egypt, an American/Egyptian joint venture.
Vice Chairperson
Elizabeth Agnew was elected as vice chairperson. She is an associate professor of religious studies. After serving on both Faculty Council and Senate for five years, this is her sixth year as vice chair, and she will have reached the term limit of six years.
Agnew said she thinks it's important for her to step up and take leadership at this point in her term.
"I have been committed as best as I can to follow the issues here carefully," she said. "I've also served on the Senate Agenda Committee, where I saw the overview in terms of the kinds of legislation that comes forward. I'm now on the council to deal with that legislation."
According to her Faculty Council biography, she has also served on the Publications and Intellectual Property, Student Rights, Ethics and Standards, Academic Freedom and Ethics, and Library committees. She frequently serves on departmental committees, including serving as chair of the salary committee.
Secretary
Jagdish Khubchandani, an associate professor of community health education, was elected to serve as secretary of the council. He has been at Ball State for six years and said he is ready to give back to the place that has helped him.
"I've gotten a lot from Ball State. I've been very selfish and I've not given back anything yet," he said.
According to his Faculty Council biography, Khubchandani's research has been recognized by Fox News, US News and World Report, CNBC, Yahoo News, the Huffington Post and the Chicago Tribune. He was also the recipient of the Indiana Governor’s Service Learning Award, the Hurley Goodall Distinguished Faculty Award and the BSU Outstanding Junior Faculty Award.
The professor said he's worked with others to see how he can help to improve faculty life at Ball State.
"I've tried to go out, reach out to people and see how we can improve the community," Khubchandani said. "Because this community has improved me a lot."
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